First look at Ballast Point Brewpub, opening Tuesday, reveals it's not just about the beer

Ballast Point’s first Chicago outpost, at 212 N. Green St., features a modest three-barrel brewing system and an expansive pub with 400 seats spread across 12,000 square feet, divvied between the first floor and a fourth-floor roof deck. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

Your first experience at the new Ballast Point Tasting Room and Kitchen in blistering-hot Fulton Market happens before even setting foot inside the building.

It comes just outside the front door, on Green Street, where a tiny brewery filled with gleaming silver tanks is separated from the sidewalk by three panes of glass. From the street, it’s like an exhibit at the zoo.

That little brewery remains prominent once inside the pub, too, visible from the long, oval bar and much of the main dining area.

The message, at the pub that opens Tuesday, is clear: You’re not just at a Ballast Point pub. You’re at a Ballast Point brewery.

Though just a fraction of the beer poured at the pub will be made on-site, building the modest three-barrel brewing system anywhere else — in back, in the basement, walled off from public view — would defeat the purpose of one of California’s most recognizable breweries opening so far from home.

Ballast Point’s Chicago outpost, at 212 N. Green St., is not simply about the beer — it’s about experiencing a brand trying to establish itself as a national entity, battling Goose Island, Lagunitas and Boston Beer, among others.

“It’s all about the consumer, and what we know about consumers in the craft category, and younger consumers, is that they are craving brand experiences,” said Greg Gallagher, senior marketing director for craft and specialty beer at Constellation Brands. “It’s not the old model of building awareness anymore.”

In other words, a sale in a supermarket only goes so far in 2018.

“Consumers want to touch and feel the brand,” Gallagher said.

As a result, brewpubs have become a popular means for the largest beer companies to wedge their craft brands into local beer scenes far from home. The biggest beer company of them all, Anheuser-Busch, has pubs open or in planning for several of the craft breweries it has bought in recent years: 10 Barrel Brewing in Denver and San Diego, Golden Road Brewing in Oakland and Sacramento, and Goose Island in Philadelphia and Toronto, among several other international locations.

Ballast Point’s Chicago pub is among the boldest moves yet for the brand. Founded in San Diego in 1996, Ballast Point was acquired by Constellation Brands — owner of Corona and Modelo Especial in the United States and dozens of wine and spirits brands — for a jaw-dropping $1 billion in 2015.

Despite the lofty investment, Ballast Point has struggled in recent years. Trade publication Beer Marketer’s Insights estimates that Ballast Point’s shipments were down 15 percent in 2017 from the previous year.

Constellation is hoping that the problem is rooted in a lack of awareness of the brand — hence an aggressive move beyond its core audience in California. Chicago’s geographic location, its embrace of craft beer and its status as a tourism hub “made it a no brainer” for a pub, Gallagher said.

“We wanted to build a presence in the center of the country,” Gallagher said. “Think about how many people from different parts of the Midwest come here. We can touch a lot of consumers.”

That’s especially true positioned in Fulton Market, beside The Publican, the restaurant that helped launch the area as one of the city’s eating and drinking hot spots.

Constellation is betting big on its Ballast Point pub, with 400 seats spread across 12,000 square feet, divvied up between the first floor and a fourth-floor roof deck that opens this summer.

It includes touches familiar to the brand’s nautical theme: light fixtures akin to fishing poles and fishbowls, and reproductions of the aquatic art that adorns Ballast Point bottles and cans. Figuring Chicago is a town that loves its sports, televisions are plentiful, including eight behind the bar.

More than 100 tap handles will pour 40 to 50 beers at a time, three or four of which will be made in the brewery facing Green Street.

The vast majority of the beer will come from Ballast Point breweries in California and Virginia. But Keith Faught, who has been with the company for three years, will brew a few times a week on the three-barrel system in Chicago. Among his first creations will be a New England-style IPA — one of the most popular styles in beer at the moment.

The kitchen will produce a combination of California staples (Baja-style fish tacos) and Midwest inspirations (bratwurst). Beer dinners — menus with beer to match the food — will be staged at least four times per year.

Out front, on that Green Street window looking into the brewery, is a timeline charting Ballast Point’s history. It begins in 1992 with the opening of Home Brew Mart in San Diego, which eventually became Ballast Point. The timeline also includes nods to when the brewery began packaging beer (1999), when it first brewed its flagship Sculpin IPA (2005) and when the company began distributing in Chicago (2013).

Nowhere mentioned is the most notable event of 2015: Ballast Point’s sale to the nation’s third-largest beer company. Instead, Gallagher said, the pub is “about what the brand stands for, and bringing it to life for the consumer.”

“It’s all about Ballast Point,” he said. “And I think that’s what the consumer cares about.”

Catch Josh Noel at Lit Fest

Josh Noel will read from and talk about his book, “Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out,” at Printers Row Lit Fest, in a Q&A with Ray Daniels, beer writer and founder of the Cicerone Certification Program, 1:45 p.m. June 9 on the Food & Dining stage. See details at printersrowlitfest.org.

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